Educator exemplifies need to support standout teachers

By J. Patrick Coolican

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Scott Ginger is the John Wooden of Nevada high school speech and debate. The late Wooden was the great UCLA basketball coach who won 10 championships but was equally celebrated for the way he inspired and shaped the lives of young men. Ginger teaches English and speech and debate — it’s called “forensics” by its practitioners — at Green Valley High School, and his forensics team recently won a 10th state championship under his direction. This year, the team will send 15 kids to the national competition in Dallas to face off against 3,000 students.

Ginger has built a machine. His team this year has 90 competitors, which is about average, and has once again attracted a mix of the school’s best and brightest students and its most charismatic performers. Many stay after school with Ginger at least four days a week to practice. And they’re researching public policy or legal or philosophical questions they’ll confront in the all-day competitions — six in town and four out of town, as far away as Berkeley, Calif.

These students will in turn pass the tradition to younger students, and it rolls on, devouring undermatched opponents. Meanwhile, older siblings pass the tradition on to younger, parents tell the neighbor kids, and eighth-grade English teachers at Green Valley’s feeder schools talk up the program for the next group of superstars. They don’t rebuild. They reload.

I shouldn’t give the wrong impression about Ginger, however. He’s not some high pressure authoritarian. When I was interviewing him I had a sense from his genuine, down-to-earth, kind demeanor that he was from the Midwest. Sure enough — Iowa.

And for Ginger, it’s not about winning. “This is a vehicle to build character, to be ethical, to be kind, to think big picture and think about others. And when kids see that model, they’re working for each other.” A former student who is a new mom emailed Ginger and told him she was instilling in her child the lessons she learned in the program. “That’s the real win,” he says.

A leader is someone with the intangible ability to inspire us to be better than what we are. Ginger isn’t the rah-rah type. His specialty is quiet direction and the development of student leaders — the team has eight captains — who then push the program forward and develop still more leaders.

Earlier this year, I was reporting a story about Nevada losing its finest students, who often leave the state to attend elite universities elsewhere, and often don’t return. I wanted to interview some recent top-notch graduates, so I called Green Valley High School. I was directed to Ginger; I found it a little odd — why a teacher and not a guidance counselor?

I told Ginger what I was looking for. Within 24 hours, I started getting calls. Lots of them, telling me “Mr. Ginger,” as they still refer to him, had asked them to call me. They called me from Stanford and Harvard, from honors programs at UNLV and UNR, from a high-powered local law firm, from a Seattle software firm, from a California think tank. If you think about it, forensics might be the best extracurricular activity to prepare students for success — it requires preparation, hard work, critical thinking and communication skills. Life in a nutshell.

We need more Mr. Gingers. I think we can all agree on that. So I ask you to explain to me how laying off hundreds of Clark County teachers and possibly many more and giving the survivors a pay cut — as Gov. Brian Sandoval’s budget would require even with state forecasters’ upbeat economic forecast released Monday — would deliver more Mr. Gingers.

(Ginger’s students who are on their way to the national competition are raising money for the trip. To contribute, contact Green Valley High School, 799-0950.)